


and if you might find that your running is done (a little bit of heaven never hurt no one)

by whisperedwords



Category: Power Rangers (2017)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, First Kiss, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Multi, Poly Because Rangers, Polyamory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-03
Updated: 2017-07-03
Packaged: 2018-11-22 06:34:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,489
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11374578
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whisperedwords/pseuds/whisperedwords
Summary: Jason Scott has four first kisses. He knows. It's a lot.





	and if you might find that your running is done (a little bit of heaven never hurt no one)

**Author's Note:**

> i would die for this ot5 and i have NO IDEA how to write them. this is just me trying my best. (title from [on the way home](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=frM3_Kq8-ww).)

Kimberly is the first.

After their campfire—after the confessional that Zack thought would bring them close enough to morph—Jason just heads home, heart heavy from knowing that ultimately this team somehow wasn’t enough for Zordon. (And it’s not like he needs Zordon’s approval—God knows he doesn’t agree with _anything_ that the ranger in the wall has actually said to them—but something about having the weight of the world on your shoulders and being unable to carry it makes his chest feel tight in the worst possible way.) Even his _keys_ feel heavy as he pulls them from his pocket to unlock the front door and ghost up the stairs. Zordon’s words echo in his mind— _worthy_ rangers—and he wonders if they hadn’t really been chosen at all. If it had just been sheer chance that Billy and Zack had ended up finding and breaking open the glass-encased power coins, and nothing more.

If they weren’t _actually_ destined to be something greater. The tightness in Jason’s chest intensifies and he pauses in the hallway, takes a deep, steadying breath before finishing the trek back to his room. The first thing he does is tear off his shitty plaid shirt and fling it across the room—suddenly the thought of failure makes him _angry_ more than anything else. It lands helplessly on a discarded pile of football trophies in the corner of his room, and all the anger rises to the surface: he storms to his window, wrenches it open, and yells.

He immediately regrets it, because he can hear Pearl across the hall shifting under her blankets in a way that he _knows_ means she’s afraid. He wants to go over there—wants to apologize, wants to tell her everything so that she’ll understand why her big brother seems like he’s constantly about to explode—but he knows he can’t. His identity is a secret. His alone. He won’t drag his innocent younger sister into this disaster of a life he’s living.

Instead, he steps back, takes a deep breath of the fresh air blowing gently through the curtains of his room, and crawls into bed. Maybe sleep will fix things, he thinks halfheartedly. (He knows it won’t.)

Lucky for him, an hour later, Kimberly Hart crawls through his window and wakes him up in the most jarring way imaginable. Her hand lingers a little as it pulls away from his lips, and his first thought—

“Is everything okay?” He feels dumb as soon as he says it, though, because the way she collapses onto his bed, hunched over herself, he practically knows the answer.

“I think I’m the reason we can’t morph.” She pauses, looks down. Jason is struck with an overwhelming urge to take one of her hands in his own, but he ignores it and continues to listen. “I haven’t really been honest.” He nods. “I punched Ty Fleming in the face because he told everyone I was the meanest person he’d ever met.”

“That can’t be true.” Jason reaches out for a moment to try and be reassuring, but Kimberly has other plans. She leans back, pulls her phone out and types furiously for a few seconds. Then she shows him the screen—

“Whoa.” He does his best not to recoil at the unflattering-to-say-the-least picture of Amanda Clark currently being shoved in his face. “You took that picture?” The look that crosses Kim’s face twists his stomach.

“No. She took that picture. But she shared it with me. Privately.” She ducks her head. “She trusted me.”

“And you sent that pic to Ty.” It’s meant to be a question, but it comes out a little flatter than he’d intended, and he can tell she noticed that.

“With a text that said ‘ _is this the girl you wanna bring home to your mom?_ ’” She shakes her head, her gaze still averted. For a split second, all thoughts of being a ranger have completely left Jason’s head. He sits up a little more. “I did not know how mean it was…until I saw her face.” She takes a deep breath and doesn’t say anything for a few moments. But he notices as her hands ball up into fists in his blanket. (He recognizes angry—he’d just been there.) She takes a shaky breath that draws him out of his thoughts. “I _did_ this! I had to sit in Mr. Detmer’s office with her father…when they showed him that picture for the first time, I…I could see who I’d become.” Kim wipes at her eyes aggressively, though Jason can’t quite see the tears on her cheeks. “So I lied. Blamed everyone else. I wanted to _die_ …”

“Kim.” Jason finally listens to his instincts and grabs her hands. “Listen to me. Start over. Erase that picture.”

She looks at him in disbelief. “Jason, it can’t be _erased_ —”

“Then live with it.” He squeezes her fingers. “You did an awful thing, but that doesn’t make you an awful person. Just…” He pauses, looking for the words, and somehow ends up looking right into her eyes as softness overtakes her features. “Just be the person you _wanna_ be.” He ducks his head, this time, looking at their intertwined fingers and pointedly not looking back up into Kim’s beautiful, warm expression. He doesn’t know why, but his stomach is twisting into knots again and it’s not because of the story. She chuckles, a little, which of course draws his attention back to her.

“Um...honestly? I kind of want to be the girl that kisses you right now.” Jason watches as she looks around the room for a second, a blush spreading across her face. “Cheesy, right?” She laughs, more of a soft rumble than anything else, and it’s contagious. Jason can’t stop himself from chuckling at her words: yet he can’t take his eyes off her, either.

“I—no—I—I think you should be that girl.” He doesn’t even realize that he’d said it until he sees the look that crosses her face. Hopeful. Beautiful. Even in the dim light of his room, her cheeks are pink… _pink_. There it is. “But that could...potentially...”

She laughs again, interrupting the ramble he could feel building in his mouth. “Okay, shut up.” In no time, she’s closed the space between them; Kimberly makes sure to press a hand gently against his cheek as she kisses him.

* * *

 

Afterwards—after all of it, all the chaos of Rita and Goldar and losing Billy for what felt like an eternity—he and Kim don’t really talk about what happened between them. It’s not like there’s much to talk about, he tells himself, though he can’t really ever look at her the same way again: the shadows of his room will always play on her face and he will always want to kiss them off. But he’s accepted that fact—it isn’t love, he doesn’t think, but the connection between them runs deeper than he’d thought.

Another thing that Jason hadn’t thought about is the way that his life has become so completely, utterly dependent on his rangers—on his team. Every waking moment they’re on his mind, whether they’re in detention together or training in the pit; sometimes they even appear in his dreams—though he never remembers those, really.

Except, of course, for the one dream he does remember. It’s not about the team: it’s not about ranger battles or training or anything even remotely close to that.

He dreams about lying in bed with Zack Taylor. It’s a fragmented dream, and he doesn’t remember the context of it at all, but the one image that lingers in his mind is Zack, half his face buried in a pillow, staring directly at him in a way that sends chills down Jason’s spine just _thinking_ about. A smile spreads slowly over dream Zack’s face, and he reaches out from beneath the blankets they’re under to press his hand over Jason’s heart. It’s skin-to-skin contact, intimate in a way that waking Jason doesn’t understand but dream Jason is drawn towards. Dream Zack moves his hand up Jason’s chest, drags his fingers up Jason’s collarbone and finally allows his hand to rest flat on Jason’s cheek. The tenderness of the touch sends the blood rushing to his face, and dream Zack smiles softly at him, rubbing his thumb in a gentle circle—

Jason can’t remember for the _life_ of him what happens next, but he’s fairly certain he can guess, and the thought alone makes him feel antsy. While being attracted to both women and men was part of himself that he’d been coming to terms with recently (aka _before_ the ranger situation), it had always been from a distant angle—something unbiased and general that he didn’t have to see and, oh, save the world on a regular basis with? The thought of being attracted to Zack _scares_ him beyond belief in a way that no Putty could ever hope to achieve.

So, of course, having the luck that he does, the _first_ person Jason runs into the day after is none other than Zack Taylor, who’s beaming at him like he always does.

“Jay-Jay!” He gives Jason a friendly punch to the shoulder, which would be brutal and leave a mark if the two of them weren’t superhuman defenders of the planet. Instead, it feels like a light brush of knuckles to his arm, and right now, Jason would take the bruised mark over the light touch any day.

“Hey, Zack,” he greets instead, shouldering his backpack and turning towards his first period class. With any other person, he’d hope that they would get the message and leave him alone—but Zack isn’t any other person, and accordingly, he sidles up right next to Jason so that they’re practically walking arm-in-arm.

“How ya doin’, man?”

“Tired,” Jason answers truthfully, rubbing at his face briefly before turning to look at Zack. “You?”

“Same, dude.” Zack throws an arm over Jason’s shoulder. “Late night?”

“Crazy dreams.” He can’t stop himself from saying it, even though he _knows_ he’s going to get himself into a world of trouble by even touching on the subject. Zack raises his eyebrows and shakes him for a moment, a wild grin appearing on his face. (Jason flashes back to the half-smile into the pillow and blinks.) He’s self-conscious even though he knows Zack doesn’t know what his crazy dream was about.

“Ooooooh man, Jay, what kind of crazy?” He wags one brow, making Jason laugh despite his suddenly awkward situation. “Threesome crazy? Zord crazy?” His expression quiets, softens into something concerned. “Billy crazy?”

“Nah, man.” There’s a pang of something in his chest when Zack asks that last part—always concerned, always worried he’s going to lose the people he cares about. “Just… _crazy_ crazy.” He grins to alleviate the concern, which mostly does the trick. Zack’s thousand-watt smile turns back on, and he tugs Jason closer to him for a second.

“Honestly, same dude.” He pauses. “I feel like I’ve _always_ got crazy dreams.”

Jason pauses for a moment, the two of them standing still in an almost-empty hallway. Class is about to start. “Well, you’re a crazy guy, right? It only makes sense.” At that, Zack lets out a bright and startling laugh, leaning into Jason so that his breath, warm and a little bit minty, rolls softly into the red ranger’s face. It makes his chest tight again, in that same way it was all those weeks ago in his room with Kim…

“You kill me, Jaybird.” With a gentle squeeze of his shoulder, Zack starts to withdraw his arm and turn—he probably means to turn towards his classroom, or towards his locker, or just anywhere else, but instead ends up practically nose-to-nose with Jason, both suddenly frozen and unable to move. Zack’s hand is on Jason’s shoulder, and Jason is so close to Zack’s face that he can see the flecks of gold glittering in the black ranger’s eyes.

The image of dream Zack’s hand on his face comes rushing back to Jason, and he can _feel_ his face burning as he finally, _finally_ finds the autonomous control to move again. Zack’s face is just about unreadable (something practically unheard of for the most outspoken of the five) save for the slight blush coloring his cheeks—the two of them part without another word, every cell in Jason’s body _screaming_ about how embarrassing and disorienting being that close to Zack had been.

The thing is—he can’t stop thinking about it. Sitting in class, pencil in hand, all he can think about is how Zack had been so close to him the entire walk through school, hand on his elbow, arm over his shoulder, pressed together in a way that doesn’t quite fall out of the jurisdiction of intimacy. The teacher calls on him and he jolts out of his head for a second, completely caught off-guard.

“Well, Mr. Scott?”

“I—havetogotothebathroom.” He all but vaults out of his seat and scrambles out the door, his brain full of nothing but Zack. It’s ridiculous, _ridiculous_ , he needs to wash his face and breathe and just pull himself together—

The first droplets of water haven’t even fully dripped off his face when the bathroom door slams open. Jason looks up, startled: Zack is staring back at him, his eyes a little bit darker than before. Jason’s throat goes dry.

“My crazy dream was about you.” He doesn’t even try to stop himself from saying it, something raw and instinctive and resembling a Zord rears its head in his chest. Zack nods, looking ready to pounce like that same thing is rattling around inside him, too.

“Mine was about you.” He takes no time in crossing the room, and when he reaches Jason, he takes the red ranger’s face in both his hands and crushes their lips together.

* * *

 

Graduation—and the first summer the rangers experience as a team—hurtles toward them faster than Alpha 5 can rattle off a lesson plan. Suddenly, before any of them can have a chance to process their senior year, they’ve got a week left of school. All of Jason’s teachers have essentially given up trying to get their students to learn anything new; he tells his friends (Kim, Billy, Trini, and Zack, that is) that he feels like he only goes to school for free periods.

The frequency with which he sees his friends is also impossibly higher, too—if he’d thought the first _month_ post-Rita was more than normal, June blows it right out of the water. It would be easier to calculate the hours they spent _apart_ , Jason thinks fondly, currently fiddling with his phone while lying on Billy’s bed. They’d been studying their pre-calc material for what felt like a ridiculously long time, and as much as he loves Billy, there’s only so much that he can consume academically (no matter _who_ is talking through it with him) before his brain starts to short circuit. He sets his phone down on his chest for a moment and looks over to where Billy is hunched over one of his tables. It only takes a second for Jason to recognize the stress building up in his friend, who’s been fiddling with his notebook and the handful of pencils beside him for probably close to thirty minutes. He clears his throat.

“Wanna take a break?” Jason asks. Almost instantly, he can hear the blue ranger’s rustling through pages and pages of notes stop, and the soft sigh of relief that replaces it makes Jason smile. He blinks slowly as the sun spills through Billy’s curtains and onto his bed. Being this warm, this comfortable…he feels a little sleepy.

Billy’s voice is only a little muffled when he responds ‘ _good idea, Jason_ ’ from where he’s standing. Jason nods wordlessly before turning his gaze back up to the newspaper-covered ceiling. (He’s always fascinated by the stories that Billy collects—today, he notices a piece about the leader of the Power Rangers taped hastily over a thin layer of other clippings. The picture attached to it is a photo of the two of them—red and blue, Jason and Billy—standing side-by-side in a rather heroic pose. _“We gotta pose for the Grove Sun, Jason!”_ Billy had said. The memory makes Jason smile.) The silence that follows is comfortable and a little bit heavy, which lures Jason into closing his eyes, into starting to succumb to the sun’s rays.

The silence lasts for about five minutes, because before he knows it, there’s more rustling at the other end of the room, and he cracks an eye open to see what his friend could _possibly_ be doing besides destressing.

Billy Cranston, sitting on one of the few empty surfaces around his room, is perched in front of what looks like a very old easel, squinting at it in a way that makes Jason’s gut flip around a little. There’s a little crease between his eyebrows, one that indicates _intense_ focus, and it’s one of the sweetest parts about Billy—how absolutely genuine he is.

Jason can’t help himself. “Whatcha doing?” His voice cracks a little but he knows Billy won’t notice or really care. Billy looks up, a startled look crossing his face for a split second. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to scare you.”

“No, no, you’re good,” Billy replies, nodding his head quickly. “I thought you were gonna take a nap, that’s all. You look tired.”

“’m always tired, Billy,” Jason replies, ending the sentence with a rather unnecessarily long yawn. He grins. Billy smiles a little before turning his attention back to the easel. “No, dude, but seriously. Whatcha got?”

“I, uh, I wanted to do something nice for you guys since we’re gonna be graduating in a week, and I’ve been drawing a lot more in detention since the five of us met, because now we’re superheroes and best friends and honestly I don’t even have any homework to do so it’s pretty boring there otherw—” Billy looks up to see Jason’s raised eyebrows. “Anyway, so I talked to my mom and she signed me up for some classes so I decided to put them to good use and draw you guys something. You know. As a gift.”

Jason’s heart clenches as he looks at Billy’s earnest expression. “That’s great, Billy,” he says, trying to disguise the ridiculous fondness he feels for the other ranger underneath his slightly-sleepy voice. He shifts, props himself up on his elbows before sitting up fully on Billy’s bed.

“No no no no no no no no,” Billy says, jerking the easel closer to himself. Jason raises his eyebrow again. “You, uh, you can’t see this one. It’s—I wanna surprise you so don’t come over here.” In the haste of his movements, the pencil in his hand goes flying, and thank _god_ for Ranger reflexes, because Jason catches it about two seconds before it impales his right eye. “Sorry, Jason. My bad. That—that one’s on me.”

Jason just smiles at him, taps the pencil against his fingers a few times, and then gets up. “Here. I’ll walk it over to you but I’ll keep my eyes closed.” He rests his free hand over his eyes and holds the pencil out before taking a few tentative steps. “See? No spoilers.”

“No spoilers,” Billy echoes. Jason can practically see his look of mixed concern and defensiveness just from the tone of his response, and so he stops a little bit short of where (he thinks) Billy is. He feels Billy’s fingers drift over his own for a second—a brief touch, soft and accidental, but it sends a little shiver down Jason’s spine anyway as he turns back and plops himself down onto the bed.

“Thanks.” Billy goes back to scribbling for a few moments. “You know, you can take a nap if you want. ‘s been a long day. Math is boring.”

“Math _is_ boring,” Jason agrees as his weight fully settles onto the mattress. “Wake me up if you need me, yeah?”

“Alright.” Pause. “G’nite.” Jason chuckles at the softness of Billy’s voice, his heart full of affection.

 “G’nite Billy.” He closes his eyes. When he drifts off to sleep, he dreams—well, he doesn’t remember _what_ he dreams about, but when he opens his eyes again, he feels blue and warm and steady. When his eyes readjust to the change in light, he notices that Billy has stopped scribbling. The look on his face is less scrunched up than it had been before.

“All done?” Billy starts at hearing Jason’s voice, and _Jason_ starts at hearing his own voice because it sounds so groggy. He hadn’t slept that long…right?

“Yeah, ‘m done.” For a moment, Billy pauses to look again at whatever he’d just finished. “Wanna see?”

“I thought you said it was a _surprise_ ,” Jason teases, lifting himself up from the comforter. Billy nods his head a few times, bites his lip.

“Yeah, yeah, I did say that. But I changed my mind! I think it turned out real good but I want you to see it first.” He steps to the side and motions Jason closer excitedly. “Come look! Come look.” Jason shuffles over, rubbing at a sleep-blurred eye, and settles next to Billy so that their shoulders are almost touching.

On the canvas is a beautifully sketched silhouette of Jason, splayed out on what looks like a couch. A patch of light is falling on his face, skillfully obscuring the exact identity of the red ranger, while a red lightning bolt is lightly traced behind him. It’s…

“Billy.” It’s all Jason can say, his voice hushed and a little rough around the edges.

“You like it?”

“I….” Jason turns, looks into Billy’s eyes and the way they’re sparkling. The rush of affection—of _love_ , Jason realizes—hits him like a flood, and he bites his lip to keep from saying something ridiculous. “Yeah, I do.” They’re practically chest to chest but Billy doesn’t seem to mind; his focus is on Jason’s face, and Jason honestly doesn’t have words. “Billy, this is…beautiful.”

“Really?” His voice is breathless, a little bit eager, barely more than a whisper, and Jason is overwhelmed with a ridiculous urge to kiss him. He’s kissed rangers before—Billy is no different, and _god_ does he want to. He ducks his head for a moment and then looks up through his lashes.

“Can…can I kiss you?” His voice cracks again, and this time Billy notices—his eyes flicker down to Jason’s lips as he asks. The silence is still warm and heavy, like it was earlier, and he doesn’t know what triggered this feeling but looking at Billy and the piece he’d just drawn out of love alone…

“Yes, Jason.” Billy’s voice is still quiet when he replies, but his eyes are wide and glittery. Carefully, Jason leans in and presses his lips to the blue ranger’s. It’s soft—slow—but Billy’s hand comes up to rest on his cheek for a second and Jason thinks that maybe, _maybe_ he’s okay with cramming for finals if it means he gets this.

* * *

 

Graduation comes and goes. Fortunately for them, no one has come to try and conquer the Angel Grove branch of Krispy Kreme since the Rita incident in March, and as July makes its way through the cement-and-blacktop covered town, Jason has made sure to stay close to his team. If they’re not pulling an all-nighter with Zordon and Alpha, they’re spending the night at Kim’s house while her parents go on business trip after business trip, or they’re helping Zack’s mom with chores and cleaning. It’s a summer meant for them—training and bonding and lounging around before the concept of college starts to dawn on their horizon. (All of them decided unanimously that they’d be staying in Angel Grove for another year in case of emergency. Angel Grove Community College had been _more_ than accommodating with their applications, to their pleasure and the chagrin of Sam Scott.) And it had all worked—it was all going according to their (slightly disheveled and haphazard) plan.

Jason gets a call one night, the one night they’re not spending all together for once, that throws a wrench into things.

“Jason?” Trini’s voice is scratchy and low, like she’s been crying. Jason immediately sits up straighter. “I’m sorry, I didn’t—”

“Trini, where are you? Is everything okay?” He knows it’s a ridiculous question to ask, but Trini Kwan has never been fond of letting people in no matter _how_ many hours in a day she spends with them; he wants to make sure she wants to talk.

“I—I’m home. You were the first person I thought to call, I’m sorry—”

He doesn’t let her finish—bounding down the stairs at ranger speed, he sprints through Angel Grove at a breakneck pace, skidding into Trini’s driveway in no time at all. She opens the front door before he starts to climb the ivy growing up the side. Her eyes are red.

“Trini.” It’s all he says before she grabs his hand and pulls him inside. They don’t move from the middle of her living room, Trini’s hands stuffed into her pockets as she stares at the ground. “Hey, what’s—what’s—?” He rests his hands on her shoulders, squeezes gently. She shakes her head, and when she looks up, he can see the tears in her eyes.

“I—I messed it all up. Jason, I fucked it all up and I’m so sorry—”

“Trin, what happened? I want to help but you gotta…just let me know what happened. Okay?” She swipes at her eyes but the tears don’t stop, and she shakes her head.

“My parents…we’re moving.” Her voice is unusually quiet, and Jason doesn’t understand at first until—oh.

“And they—they’re sure?”

“Yeah, Red, they’re trying to get me to pack my shit for a roadtrip before they find a new place. I’m gonna be gone from Angel Grove in, what, a month?” She starts to openly sob, her face in her hands. “I thought—I thought this was home, I thought I had a stable family, Kim and Zack and Billy and you, and now it’s all…” She trails off and continues to cry, sinking back against the wall and settling down on the floor. She’s curled up into herself she’s so upset, and Jason is heartbroken. He quietly sinks down next to her.

“Trini, this isn’t your fault. You know that. Sometimes…” He pauses, looking for the words. “Shit happens, right?”

“Yeah, but not the kind of shit that tears your relationships apart like this. God, they’re gonna make me leave you all behind and I can’t, I _can’t_ do that, I _need_ you—” Trini’s tears start to slow, but her voice is choked up and Jason knows how she works, knows how she’s trying to internalize this way. He tucks his arm around her shoulders and pulls her a little closer to his side. She goes with it, sniffling but silent. Then, after a moment: “We had a future, Jay. We had it all planned out, but my shitty family had to go fucking it up—”

“Hey, hey. Listen. We’re gonna find a way to fix this, yeah? We will.” Jason pauses. “I don’t really know what we’d do without you, Yellow. We’re not gonna let this happen.” Trini shakes her head, which is now leaned against Jason’s shoulder. “You didn’t think we’d let this happen without a fight, did you?”

“Don’t make this harder than it has to be, Jason. I—I have to say goodbye soon and I just. I guess I wanted you to be the first person to know.”

“Trin.” Jason rests his hand gently against the side of Trini’s head, and she sighs softly, tears gone but sadness still intact. “We _are_ going to find a way around this. Okay?” He presses a kiss to her temple. “You know, you’ve still got options. You can live with me or Kim for a while.”

“And then what, Jason? I crash on everyone’s couch for the rest of my life? I can’t do that. I…I couldn’t ask you to do that.” Trini ducks her head back into her knees, defeat sagging her shoulders.

“What if we all moved in together?” At that, Trini’s head shoots back up, disbelief clearing the sadness from her gaze. “I mean, we spend just about every waking moment together, right? I feel like I spend more time with the four of you than I do with my family, and…” He pauses, runs a hand through his hair. “There’s no other place I’d rather be than with you. With all of you.”

Trini laughs quietly, still wary. “You’re going to go out on a limb with this and try to—what, find an apartment big enough for five people? In Angel Grove? That’s a terrible idea.”

“The worst,” Jason agrees, a knowing smile stretching across his face. “But it’s all we have, right now. Besides.” He grabs Trini’s left hand and laces his fingers with hers. “I don’t wanna do this without you, Trin. None of us do.”

“You’re ridiculous, Red.” But the smile on Trini’s face has returned, and her cheeks are warmed with color even though they’re sitting in the low lighting of her front hallway. Jason can see the curve of her smile lit beautifully, watches as it shifts so that her face is barely an inch away from his own. “Thank you.”

Jason doesn’t say anything—he just leans over and presses his lips to hers chastely, his grip on her hand unwavering. When he pulls back, her smile is just as beautiful, but softer, more aware. “We’re always going to be like this, aren’t we? All of us?”

“I think so.”

* * *

 

Their first night in their new too-small, incredibly-empty apartment is probably one of the best nights of Jason Scott’s life. Kim had brought one of the spare couches in her parents’ guest room, Billy moved his TV from his old room to their new place, and Zack, ever the pleasure seeker, scraped together some of his leftover cash to buy a king-sized bed for the five of them to sleep in. (“All of us? In _one_ bed? How the hell is _that_ going to work.” “Trini, honey, I’ll just squish in extra close to Jay-Jay. Don’t worry about it.” “Shut _up_ Zack.”) Their makeshift living room, complete with one massive window looking out on the town, is all but empty besides the five of them crammed in each others’ space around the slightly-larger-than-average loveseat. Billy and Trini are at either end—Kim is perched on the armrest, but leans heavily on Trini, who fondly whacks her shoulder a few times before succumbing to her role as “pillow”; Jason is in the middle, one hand gently resting on Billy’s knee while his legs are spread out enough for Zack to be nestled between them.

“You guys think this is going to be a good idea?” Trini asks, fiddling with the drawstrings of her sweatshirt. Kimberly makes a point of leaning down and kissing her, pulling her into a half-hug in the process. She mumbles something into Trini’s ear, and the yellow ranger softens a little, leans against Kim’s legs. Zack grabs her ankle affectionately and she pulls back from Kim’s lips to kick him affectionately. (“ _Jerk_ ,” he mumbles under his breath, but the smile on his face says otherwise.)

“It can’t be worse than going to a closed-off mine in the middle of the night,” Jason muses, and Billy inhales sharply, turning to look at Jason.

“Hey, that made us _superheroes_!” He protests. Everyone laughs, and Jason squeezes his hand gently before resting his arm on the back of the couch. They fall into amicable silence, staring at the sunset and quietly preparing for the next step as the room’s natural lighting begins to fade with the dusk.

“So.” Zack hums finally, not moving from his seat between Jason’s legs. “Who’s gonna be the little spoon tonight?” The chorus of groans that follow linger on until they finally trudge to bed. Jason realizes that this—right here—is everything he’d ever wanted. Thinking back to that night so long ago, before they’d morphed and Zordon had told him they weren’t _real_ rangers, he realizes now that this is where his worth lies—where _their_ worth lies. In each other. In the bond they’d forged by managing to be in the same place at the same time in the same tiny, washed-up town they all once hated. He is worthy. They are worthy. (They are the Power Rangers, after all.)

Zack ends up the little spoon that night. They dream of each other.


End file.
